Microsoft Wants a Piece of Handheld Gaming But It Doesn’t Include a Controller

Handheld gaming is a highly competitive market, proven by the struggling Playstation Vita and slightly less struggling Nintendo 3DS. Tablets are also pretty competitive what with Apple’s iPad strange hold. But what about a gaming tablet? Microsoft presents us with the 7″ Xbox Surface. Microsoft hasn’t actually announced this product, but rather a series of leaks have lead to the details we have. So the details are kind of thin, but here’s what seems to be the case.

Microsoft’s Xbox Surface will have a custom ARM processor with high bandwidth RAM, all of which configured for gaming. It won’t be running Windows but rather a special slimmed down version specifically for this unit. While it will probably have various social functions, its focus is gaming. Microsoft is going far out of its way to keep this secret, even down to making sure the manufacturing of their portable Xbox tablet is secret. Microsoft has even locked down certain parts of the company restricting access to the buildings specifically for testing this project. Assuming the Xbox Surface does ever see the light, rumors say that it will be coming out before the next Xbox gaming console.

You can see the supposedly leaked Xbox Surface document from earlier this year here:

Microsoft has not officially confirmed any of this officially. This information supposedly comes from various design documents that have been leaked along with employee confirmation from within Microsoft’s Redmond HQ.